Gray Fox,
You are obviously not an owner or trainer. With the current handicapping system, unless you are lucky enough to have a nice 3 year old, it is impossible to win a race if you draw badly or you are up against potential derby or oaks horses. With clubs frequently leaving nominations open after the advertised closing time, you are often accepting for a race without knowing the calabre of horses you are racing against. If you have a nice horse which isn't classic material but can win a few races, this becomes impossible if you are constantly racing 3 year olds which have handicapping concessions. By racing these horses week after week all you do is break your horses heart. At least up till now you have been able to scratch if your horse draws badly or the field is too strong for your horse. By introducing these scratching penalties clubs which have been struggling to fill fields will have an even smaller pool of horses the following week. Under the current system a horse that wins on a Tuesday meeting gets a full handicapping penalty whereas a 3 year old will only get a half penalty even if it wins the derby. The system was already too heavily weighted towards 2 and 3 year old racing and now with the introduction of scratching penalties this problem will be compounded. I predict that the already large numbers of horses being exported to Australia will become a mass exodus leaving clubs with no horsrs to fill their fields except 2 and 3 year olds.